IT’S LEGAL!
How BK legislators voted on weed legalization
BY BEN VERDE
All but four of Brooklyn’s
state legislators voted in favor
of legalizing the recreational
use of marijuana, which Gov.
Andrew Cuomo signed into
law on Wednesday.
State Sen. Simcha Felder,
who represents Borough Park
and formerly caucused with
the Republican-aligned Independent
Democratic Conference,
was the lone Brooklyn
dissenter in the legislature’s
upper chamber.
In the Assembly, Bensonhurst
Democrat William Colton,
Borough Park Democrat
Simcha Eichenstein and Republican
Mike Tannousis,
whose district covers a sliver
of Bay Ridge, voted against legalization.
The bill passed the senate
with support from previously
weed-skeptical East New
York representative Roxanne
Persaud, who was one of the
nine Democratic state senators
responsible for killing
STAY INFORMED!
12 COURIER LIFE, APRIL 2-8, 2021
the state’s 2019 attempt to legalize
it.
Persaud said her decision
to vote for legalization was
based on hours of conversation
with constituents and
advocates, and was largely
based on the criminal justice
implications the bill carried,
which will impune the records
of those previously arrested
for marijuana offenses
in the state.
“While I remain concerned
about what legalization says
to young people, there is
no debating that Black and
brown New Yorkers have long
borne the brunt of a policy
that other New Yorkers could
disregard with impunity,”
Persaud said in a statement.
The bill immediately legalized
marijuana possession
under three ounces in New
York, and allows for a highly
regulated and taxed market
to emerge in the state as soon
as April 2022. It also gives
New Yorkers who are currently
in jail or living with a
criminal record the chance to
petition for their dismissal or
re-sentencing and have their
records expunged.
In an effort to lift up the
communities that have been
harmed the most by the war
on drugs, the legislation requires
that 50 percent of all licenses
to cannabis registered
organizations go to “social equity
applicants” with an emphasis
on those coming from
low-income communities,
have a marijuana-related conviction,
or are a minority or
women-owned business.
East New York Assemblymember
Charles Barron
said during the assembly
hearing that he supported legalization
because he felt it
was a necessary step in the
path to liberation.
“I don’t think we can use
cannabis as a tool for our liberation,”
he said. “But neither
can we use jail for our
liberation.” A marijuana leaf. REUTERS/Blair Gable
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